Friday, 16 July 2010

The jobs data for June has been described as being "off the charts". I take this kind of news with mixed feelings because on the one hand it means Canadians are working again. On the other hand it can be twisted to serve the agendas of the pro mass immigration lobby and the immigration industry because if the Canadian job market is robust then why decrease immigration inflows at all? Indeed, why not increase the intake?

If the recent and past recessions since 1990 have taught us anything is that immigration policy has been completely divorced from satifying labour market needs and has more to do with serving the interests of the party in power. This is in fact its legacy.

ImmigrationWatchCanada.org, in one of its weekly bulletins, has published a must read for anyone interested in understanding the history of Canada's current immigration policy. It resurrects a Globe and Mail article from 1990 in which we learn that the Mulroney Tories increased immigration intake numbers as a kind of outreach program to capture the urban immigrant vote. This was done irrespective of the actual added costs of such increases let alone the real economic need of an increase. Prior to this Canada had a "tap on, tap off" approach to immigration that served the country well. Now its more immigrants regardless of the health of the economy.

Jason Kenney, the current minister responsible for immigration, has not departed from this politically motivated policy shift despite the reforms he has brought to the system. When Canada's economy was "booming" we were told that we need more immigrants to fill vacant job postings. When the recession of 2008 hit Jason Kenney refused to consider decreasing immigration targets because we needed them to "prepare for the recovery". For those who remember the recession of of the early 1990's this was deja vu. So, how about that? When times are good we need mass immigration. When times are bad we still need mass immigration. How can you beat that?

Canada has 308 electoral ridings, of which 52 have a visible minority population in excess of 30%. In these ridings, the Conservative party has won only 11 of these 52 seats, with the remainder going towards the Liberals at 34 seats and the NDP at 7 seats.

To put this in another way, the Liberal Party captures 65% of the seats which have +30% visible minorities. The Conservatives capture a mere 21 % of such seats.

[...]

In the 22 ridings that are +50% visible minority, the Conservatives only hold 3 seats. In other words, ridings with +50% visible minorities, vote Liberal or NDP 86% of the time.

To think that Conservative Party strategists are not aware of this is an exercise in naiveté. The Conservatives are governing with a minority and need to make breakthroughs in urban ridings if they want to secure a majority. And they have made some progress. They captured Missaussauga-Erindale, a riding with a considerable Muslim immigrant population, away from the Liberals in the last election. And they came close to stealing away Brampton-Springdale from that Liberal party narcissist Ruby Dhalla who held onto it be a mere 1,000 odd votes. It should be noted that Brampton-Springdale has a heavy Punjabi Sikh presence.

It can be reasoned that the Conservative Party has assumed that in order to attract the immigrant and the so-called "ethnic vote" it must make its immigration policy indiscernible from that of any left of center party. It may be true that the mores and customs of many immigrant communities are culturally at home with the Conservative party, however as long as the Conservatives have a right of center approach to immigration they will not vote for them. This is undemocratic because it denies Canadians a conservative option regarding immigration reform. And this is why there is no immigration reform in Canada to speak off and why it is rarely discussed at all. So beholden are Canada's political parties to the swing votes of federal urban ridings, that are now and increasingly are characterized as being immigrant and ethnic, that all of them have come to the understanding that it is best not to talk about immigration unless it is in glowing terms and pleas for more of it. That being the case the concerns of ethnic urban ridings will determine immigration policy not the minister or the opinions of the current host majority population who must suffer with its consequences.

Retuning to that jobs data report, though it is good news it must be received with reservation. We don't really know the nature and permanence of the jobs that were created. The following quote was taken from a thread at the conservative message board Freedominion.

Regarding Paul Vieira's article about Canada's job market. I'd be very interested in seeing even a partial list of the companies that are on these massive hiring sprees, and the positions that they are filling.

I'm a professional engineer, unemployed since November. I've applied to job openings that fit my skill set perfectly, and get no response. Yes, my resume and cover letter have been edited by experts in the business.

In my entire life, I have never seen so many friends and acquaintances in the same situation as me. I'm talking about machinists, engineers, electricians, accountants, architects, writers, and IT experts of various types. The reception we get when we approach companies ranges from automated email responses at best to outright hostility at worst. Yes, I have had receptionists chew me out for having the gall to ask who to send a resume to.

So, I would like, just once, to see some evidence to back up the government propaganda that companies in Canada are hiring people left, right, and centre. Even if you guys don't publish this, I just want you guys who write these articles to know that what you're printing, and what's happening in the real world, are completely the opposite.

All the reports I read on the June jobs data were vague. They tell us that 93,200 net new jobs were created mostly in the private sector albeit within the service sector along with self employment. We also know growth in part-time and full-time jobs were approximately split. More details will be nice such as the permanence and incomes of the jobs. A job for one day would be included in the data as well as seasonal. If the call for more immigrants is because a Tim Hortans needs someone to serve customers coffee then perhaps that Tim Hortans should never have been built in the first place.

The National Postreports that Canada is "the top pick for asylum seekers".

Canada, during the first year of the economic crisis, was the top target of asylumseekers among the G8 major industrialized nations on a per-capita basis, according to a report released yesterday.

An estimated 34,800 people arrived in Canada in 2008 seeking refugee status, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's annual report on global migration.

That works out to 1,045 asylum-seekers for every million people in Canada.

Only the United States, with 39,400, and France, with 35,400, had more among Canada's largest trading partners. The U.S. figure works out to just 130 for every million people, while the French total was 568 for every million.

The Canadian government has since restricted access to Canada for potential asylumseekers from Mexico and the Czech Republic.

The government has also recently passed legislation to crack down on what Immigration Minister Jason Kenney referred to as "waves of false asylum claims coming from safe, democratic countries."

The fact that Canada attracted more "asylum-seekers" (allegedly) per capita is on par with Canada introducing more foreigners into Canadian society, under the guise of "new Canadians", per capita than any other country. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is debatable but I contend that the merits of allowing such high intakes are dubious and do not hold much weight under closer scrutiny.

What I think should be clear is that these are not real refugees, at least not in the conventional sense. They are economic migrants, self selecting immigrants using the asylum system to immigrate to Canada.

Canadian authorities are monitoring a Thai cargo ship after reports it may be on its way to the British Columbia coast with more than 200 migrants on board.

The MV Sun Sea was last spotted in the Gulf of Thailand, where it was the subject of a lookout issued by the Philippine Coast Guard, which called it "a suspected people-smuggling vessel."

On the weekend, Colombo's Sunday Observer newspaper reported that while the 59-metre vessel was originally headed for Australia it was now sailing toward the Canadian coast.

The office of Jason Kenney, the Minister of Immigration, is following the case. "This could end up being a prime example of individuals trying to take advantage of our generous immigration system," said Celyeste Power, the Minister's spokeswoman.

The Department of Foreign Affairs also said it was "aware of press reports suggesting that a vessel has departed Southeast Asian waters and may be destined for Canada," and vowed to prosecute anyone caught smuggling human cargo.

Prosecuting the people-smugglers is part of the solution but allowing the illegal migrants ashore and processing their claims while allowing them roam free in Canadian society doesn't help much. Didn't we just let 76 suspected Tamil Tigers into Canadian society via a smuggling operation? What kind of signal do you think that sent?

If they are Sri Lankans they are probably Tamil. And they are bogus. Plain and simple. They are immigrating, not seeking refuge. The claims of Tamil persecution in Sri Lanka are over-exaggerated if not outright lies. Since the war has been over for a year the best way to deal with this is to stop all asylum claims from Sri Lanka. It's an absolute joke that Canada has the most Sri Lankan Tamils, an estimated 250,000 to 300,000, in the world outside of Sri Lanka. How do you think they got here? As immigrants or as "refugees"?

This is worth watching because it will put to test the new procedures for determining refugees that just recently came into law. If it has teeth then all 200+ of them should be on their way back to Sri Lanka within six months. Sadly, I think that is wishful thinking. I feel Canada will add another 200+ bogus Sri Lankan Tamil "refugees" to the already 250,000+ Sri Lankan Tamil bogus "refugees" that preceded them.

Mind you if it weren't for the Singh decision then Canada wouldn't be the bogus refugee's top nation of choice.

I'm glad to report that there is another blog out there that is critical of Canada's mass immigration system from a conservative and nationalistic view point. It is called Standing On Guard For Canada and from what I can surmise it has been in effect since June of this year.

It's good to see more people blogging about the issue because we really need to raise awareness about the direction mass immigration is taking our country and be critical of its claimed effectiveness. Elite opinion controls the debate and have left the majority of Canadians in the dark about the real costs of mass immigration mostly for self serving purposes. But when the issue of mass immigration, and inevitable multiculturalism, is raised it has been in my experience that many Canadians are uncomfortable with it, even oppose it. I dare go so far as to say that the majority of Canadians disagree with it but stay silent or say what they feel they are supposed to say for fear of being labeled a racist or a bigot when in reality they are anything but. It's a shame the debate, if one even exists, has come to this but I long ago abandoned the idea that mass immigration proponents are interested in playing fair. After all, their jobs and agendas are on the line and they are not going to surrendered them that easily.